Friday, August 06, 2010

Rights, Civil Rights, and Hmm

That Obama fella seems to suffer either from too little courage or not enough social conscience. Check last evening's Rachel Maddow segment on same-sex marriage, in which she compares his convoluted statements against SSM, for civil unions, against bans on SSM to a pretzel. (Most relevant mentions are from 3:25 to 5:23 on the embedded clip or at her site.)

Many of us progressive and other lefty sorts are exasperated...still. We all knew before we voted for him for President that he was some of this and other of that. He was a moderate with some right leanings (reminds me of the Supreme Court). He has streaks of social conservatism. He muddles flashes of fundy religion with his legal training and social activism.

Moreover, he is nominal and intermittently active leader of the Democratic Party. He thus does have obligations to raise money for and help elect and re-elect other Dems as well as himself. While that shouldn't paralyze him and make him stifle any sense of what's the right thing, it seems to confuse him and bring out his worst. That may only be more obvious as the mid-term elections color dialog and action (or lack of it).

This week's ruling in Perry v. Schwarzenegger too clearly highlights his indecision and questionable commitment to civil rights. There is no justification for his equivocation and jumbled messages of LGBT rights, including SSM.

Let's each and all tell Obama to get his act together here. He needs a steady river of emails, calls and even mail on paper. He should feel welcome to believe him religious teachings disapprove of SSM, but it should in no way affect the civil rights of fellow Americans.

Despite spurious assertions by fundies, wingers and anti-gay sorts, this is a huge civil-rights issue. We need a President with some guts and morality here. Morality is not served by intentionally harming and hindering same-sex couples and their kids, withholding what all of us straights can access freely. Morality comes in ensuring equality...with no equivocation or parsing of terms.